By Adrienne AI Policy & Best Practice

Under By Adrienne, I pride myself on being a professional designer with over a decade of experience, certification, and education in graphic and editorial design. I understand that many clients or potential clients are using AI to generate ideas, create outlines, and write content for their design project. To create a better design experience, I’ve created a policy and guidelines for all clients using AI. 

All clients must agree to disclose if they are using AI in generating any content for their project, including but not limited to illustrations and written content. This disclosure must be made clear upon starting a project with By Adrienne. 

Here are some best practices when using AI for your project

• Check for grammar and spelling yourself; do not rely on AI. If you need to hire an editor, let me know, and I can refer you to someone. 

• Replace em-dash (—) and en-dash (–) with hyphens (-) unless it’s used correctly.

• Remove all emojis or icons. This does not translate well into designs. 

• Review and remove idea repetition. Most AI tools are known for repeating points multiple times in different ways. 

• Fewer subtitles are better for consumers. Most AI tools have sub sub sub text, leading to repetitive titles and additional words that do not enhance your content.

• Remove any unnatural keyword stuff. This is not an SEO focused layout. Repeating keywords can hurt your content and overall point. 

• Less is more, not only for design but for consumption. Most AI tools aim to write as much content as possible. Make sure you are trimming down your generated content so that it feels purposeful. 

Questions to ask yourself when sharing your AI-generated content, outline, illustrations

• Is this illustration in the correct format? It should be in a PNG (transparent background) or PDF High Resolution format. If the file is too small, it will become blurry during design and printing. 

• Do I have too many headings and not enough copy? My rule of thumb with design is that a page can have a Title, Subtitle, Heading & Paragraph. Anything more makes the page busy. 

• Did I check the content for grammatical and spelling errors?  

• Can a fifth grader read and understand my content? If your project is a commercial product that will be sold to the general public, focusing on readability is important.

• Have I simplified my content? 

• Do I have a lot of short single line sentences that can be combined into a full paragraph? Why are they in single lines? Can design be used to emphasize something in the paragraph instead? Bold? Italics?

• Do I need transitional text between sections, or will the design and layout speak to the transition? 

• Do I need to make anything into bullet points to make it more digestible?

• Can my bullet points be turned into a paragraph?